O. Kay Henderson’s exclusive interview with the First Lady continues to generate interest by other media outlets. She’s scheduled to appear on C-SPAN’s “Road to the White House” (a weekly look at the candidates, issues & events shaping the 2004 Presidential race). The program airs Sundays on C-SPAN at 6:30pm ET & 9:30pm ET.
Category Archives: Learfield
How do you build web traffic?
1. You can buy ads in the Super Bowl. You can rent billboards on the Interstate. You can trade links with a thousand websites nobody gives a shit about.
2. Or you can create unique, compelling, relevent content. People interested in that content will tell other people interested in that content and on and on.
If you can’t do #2, it doesn’t matter if you can do #1. And the music comes out here.
If you watched any TV news (CNN, CBS, NBC, ABC, Fox) during the past 24 hours you might have seen the story about Laura Bush commenting on The Memos. The audio was from an interview the First Lady did with Kay Henderson, the news director of Radio Iowa, our statewide radio news network headquartered in Des Moines. Apparantly, this was the first comment by someone in the Bush camp on “the documents.” Just about every news organization in the country picked up Kay’s piece. And she had the savvy to send them all to RadioIowa.com.
Naked Cowboy
“Before I start telling you about the protests, the Broadway show and my next door deli, I must tell you about the Naked Cowboy. He’s a nearly-naked guy who stands in the middle of Times Square (in the island in the midst of the street), plays his guitar and sings. He wears a cowboy hat, cowboy boots and white briefs with the words “naked cowboy” on the rear which kind of reminds me of the sorority girls at college who would have their sorority’s greek letters plastered to the back of their shorts or sweats. Not a good idea to call attention to that area. Unless you are the naked cowboy.”
Radio Iowa News Director O. Kay Henderson blogging the convention in NY.
Edward R. Murrow Awards
Warning: Self-serving shop talk follows. The Radio-Television News Directors Association announced the winners in their annual Edward R. Murrow Awards competition today. This is kind of a big deal in the radio and TV news business. This year they started out with 3,182 entries and gave 74 awards to 53 news organization. The regional winners were announced a few weeks ago and today they announced the national winners. And one of our network websites won.
Entries fall into one of three categories (Network/Syndication Service, Large Market and Small Market) for radio and the same three for TV. And this year they added a category called Websiste Non-Broadcast.
Our entry (Missourinet.com) won in the Radio Network/Syndication Service category. Pretty cool given that the competition was ABC, CBS, NBC, NPR, CNN and god only knows who else. You gotta figure there’s some “online journalists” in NY and Atlanta scratching their heads and asking each other, “What the hell is a Missourinet? Somebody get a map!”
For some reason the RTNDA website provide the urls of the Website winners but didn’t create links. That seems a little clueless to me.
*Radio Network/Syndication Service: Missourinet, Jefferson City, MO
*Television Network/Syndication Service: MSNBC
*Television Large-Market: News 14 Carolina, Charlotte, NC
*Television Small-Market: Capital News 9, Albany, NY
*Radio Large-Market: KSL-AM, Salt Lake City
*Radio Small-Market: WBLL-AM, Bellefontaine, OH
*Website Non-Broadcast: Washington Post, Washington; Belo Interactive, Dallas
I’ll probably never know what they judges liked about our site. And let’s face it, those big national network websites have some cool features our site does not. But I can name a few things we’ve got that are unique or cool or both:
Crash Reports: Missouri State Highway Patrol accident reports, updated 24/7.
Legislature.com: Live debate audio from the state legislature. Then we archive. We’ve got it back to 2002.
Supreme Court Arguments: Oral agurments (live & archived). I think we have nearly 500 arguments online.
Missouri Death Row: Ours has become the “official” site for Missouri.
Last time I checked, there were no other websites featuring this content. On the planet. At least not the way we do. Of course, there’s a lot we can do to improve our site but, for now, it’s nice to know someone appreciates the effort. The big award show is October 4th in NY. Gomer Goes to Manhatten in a Rented Tux.
Clyde sells 40% of Learfield
That sound you just heard was a meteor the size of Nova Scotia missing the Earth by about 5 miles. Today at a company-wide meeting (webcast on our intranet), our president and CEO announced that he had sold 40% of the company to four of our senior managers. This after turning down a gazillion dollars from a Big National Media Company. Two of the four have been with our company 20 years and they’re all good, smart guys that I –for one– like working with and for. Had The Big Guy sold the farm, I’d be lugging a cardboard box of desk toys up to my room and wondering what I’d be doing tomorrow. Long-time readers have heard me gush about Learfield Communications and –after 20 years– I’m hardly objective. I finished off my tub of Kool Aide a long time ago. And anything can happen down the road but, for now, I’m more convinced than ever that I work for one of the best companies in America.
20th Anniversary at Learfield
This Friday, June 4th, will be my 20th anniversary of working for Learfield Communications. I was going to wait until Friday before posting a few thoughts but you never know what’s going to happen. I have to say I’m having more fun now than at any time since joining the company. I like most of the people I work with enough to endure the few I don’t. As I searched for some fitting metaphor or symbol for the past two decades, I spotted my Wright Arch-Preservers on the closet shelf. I bought them sometime during my first week or so with the company on the recommendation of Jim Lipsey. I paid more than a hundred bucks for them in 1984. I didn’t know you could pay that much for a pair of shoes. Jim assured me they would last a long time.
Ten or twelve years ago I went back to the store where I purchased the shoes. They carried the same line but even from across the room you could see the quality and workmanship was no longer there. If I had to guess I say the shoe company was more profitable than ever.
I don’t wear that pair of shoes much anymore because I don’t have to wear a suit much anymore. I’ve re-soled them countless times. They are not really fashionable any longer and look a little worn up close but I can’t bring myself to toss them. The days of buying shoes you keep and wear for 20 years are probably long gone.
Clyde’s 60th
Friends, family and employees helped Clyde Lear celebrate his 60th birthday this week. Clyde used those years to make the world a better place (and continues to do so). A wonderful video clearly showed how much Clyde is loved and loves. I found myself wondering if such a video could be cobbled together for my 60th year (just four short years away). Might be tough. Note to self: try to make each day a highlight clip for the Final Video. I reminded Clyde that, in ancient times, Kings would grant pardons and make proclamations on their birthdays and asked if he cared to do so.
Celebrex, Nexium, Prevacid.
Why are the big drug companies advertising on network television? In many instances, they don’t tell you what ailment the drug is supposed to help, and you can’t get it without a prescription anyway. One of the hosts on the new, “liberal” radio network, Air America, offered a theory last week (I think it was Randi Rhodes).
If Pfizer or Eli Lilly is spending millions with your network, you’ll be less likely to report negative stories about them. The purpose of the ads is not to move product, they’ve got that covered. It’s to keep a leash on the news departments. I’ve been thinking about that for days, asking myself if it could really work. Of course it could. It has. It does.
Then I asked myself if it could happen at our company. We operate several radio news networks and during my 20 years with the company, there have been several instances where a big advertiser threatened to pull business if we didn’t lay off or change a story. The owner of our company, who started as a reporter, didn’t hesitate. Advertisers don’t control editorial content. That happens in the newsroom. Period. Everybody back to work. It still gives me goose bumps to recall those very brief meetings in the corner office.
But the last few years have been a little tougher for our news networks and some of the players have changed. Would we take the same ethical/expensive stand today? Or would we try to find a way to “keep the business?” Search for a compromise. Would our news directors risk their jobs for this kind of journalistic principle? They’ve got house payments. What would I do?
It saddens me that I even wonder about these things. Ten years ago I could have said, with absolute certainty, we would tell the advertiser we would not, could not, be pressured. We’d stand by the story and live with the consequences. And it might still be true today. I hope so.
The Cleanest Tastee Freeze in Town.
I don’t have time to relate this story now but don’t want to forget it. I’m not sure about the origins but this is how I remember Jeff Salzman telling the story at a Learfield managers retreat in Colrorado 10 or 15 years ago. [to be continued]
NASRN websites
I find this really amazing. Of the 30 member states in the National Association of State Radio Networks, only 14 have websites. The Web has been around for 10 years now and has revolutionized almost every aspect of daily life and business. I can’t think of many businesses that don’t have some kind of online presence.